


On a Scale of Heaven to Hell

by spacegaysgettingspacelaid



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Fluff and Crack, Gaaaaaaaay, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Homophobia, Klance Week 2016: Heaven/Hell, Latino Lance (Voltron), M/M, also late but shhhhhh, and keith is just like, equips the sass, im doing this out of ordern arent i? xD, pidge is basically tumblr, religious differences, there are these homophobic aliens ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-21 23:36:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8264593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegaysgettingspacelaid/pseuds/spacegaysgettingspacelaid
Summary: Lance is very proud of his religion, and Keith truly couldn't care less.
The two try to convert each other. It doesn't go well.
☼☼☼
or, the one in which god loves gays and lance and keith make everyone very aware of the fact.





	

**Author's Note:**

> well this was fun
> 
> i cAnNoT sPanIsh
> 
> but i used google translate in a sorry attempt at trying.
> 
> ahem an;yways ok
> 
> here losers rEAd

"I was raised in a nice Christian family, thank you very much," Lance huffs, crossing his arms. "And I'll have you know that God very much does exist."

"Your 'god' is just a figment of your imagination that you use to make yourself feel better about how pointless we all are," Keith spits back.

"Rude!" Lance yells, eyes wide. "God is real, how can you not see that? All you have to do is look around!"

"Yeah, look around and see the mess of a world we live in. The 'loving' god you keep babbling about wouldn't let that happen, right? God, do you even hear what you're saying?"

"Thou shalt not say the Lord thy God's name in vain!" Lance shrieks, his hand flying to settle over his heart. "How dare thee!"

Keith holds up his hand like a puppet and makes sure to mock Lance extra-obviously.

"Ugh," Lance sighs, throwing his head back. "I'll ignore you, you'll ignore me. Deal?"

"Whatever, moron," Keith grumbles, turning and walking away.

"God's not dead!" Lance sings, and his voice echoes down the ship's corridors.

* * *

"On a scale of Lance to Keith, where do you stand on the whole religion deal?" Pidge asks curiously.

"The universe is pretty amazing," Hunk ponders, staring out a window into unending space. "I mean, that couldn't possibly be just because of a bunch of rocks or whatever, right?"

Pidge snorts. "I don't think a giant invisible 'god' is any more likely."

"Hmm," says Hunk, because he doesn't want to start a fight.

"Uh huh," says Pidge, because they don't, either.

* * *

"We Alteans praise the universe for its endlessness! But we acknowledge that it is our own innovation that has gotten us thus far."

Shiro glances over at Coran, who is stroking his mustache nostalgically. "So the Alteans believe the universe... created itself?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

"We spent as much time as possible advancing our society, especially technology-wise," Allura explains, "and we defined the depths of the universe as best we could. But we never did spend much time defining its origins."

"Huh," Shiro replies. He thinks of Matt murmuring prayers as he's pushed towards the arena. "Huh."

* * *

"God loves gays!" Lance chants, waving around a piece of cloth with a rainbow heart markered onto it.

"We're the only ones here, Lance, and none of us hate gay people," Pidge huffs, rolling their eyes.

"Space must know!" Lance argues, holding his cloth higher.

"What are 'gays?'" Coran asks curiously, leaning in a little too close to inspect Lance's pride cloth.

"They're boys who love boys and girls who love girls," Hunk explains.

"I see!" Coran exclaims, standing up straight again. "Interesting. Back on Altea, over half the population were too caught up in the joys of life to worry about gender. In fact, most used gender neutral pronouns and courted whoever they wanted!"

"What do you know," Pidge mutters. "Altea was basically Tumblr."

Not that Pidge has any problem with that. Pidge is basically Tumblr, too. (They have at least one fourth of all the text posts memorized.)

"Mm," Lance hums loudly, as though this proves his point.

Keith walks into the room and freezes upon seeing Lance's arrangement. "… Is that my pillow?" Keith asks.

"God bless you," Lance replies.

"… Did you draw a gay pride heart on my pillow!?" Keith asks, gaping at the display.

"God loves gays," Lance says sincerely, handing the pillow gently back to Keith before giggling and running away.

If Lance ends up in the medical bay, well, at least God loves him.

* * *

"I fear that your Earthly religions may be causing conflict between the paladins," Allura admits, biting her lip slightly.

Shiro sighs. "Tell me about it." 

* * *

"On a scale of yes to no, how done are you," Pidge asks.

"Food goo," Hunk replies.

"No, you guys don't understand! I mean, do you even hear what this mullet head is saying!?" Lance practically screams.

Keith drags a hand down his face. "All I said was that there aren't any churches in space."

"Excuse you?" Lance scoffs.

"That's exactly what you said ten minutes ago when I said it the first time," Keith deadpans. "Please, can I go back to training?"

"No! You listen here, o heathen! God will provide!"

"I just want to be alone and embrace my atheism in peace," Keith begs, glancing over at Pidge and Hunk for help.

"Sinner!"

"Hey, Lance?" Pidge asks.

"What?" Lance asks, pouting slightly.

"I'm an atheist, too."

Lance smiles and shrugs. "Hey, that's cool, man. But like if you're curious, I'd love to talk."

Keith stares for a while, and then he walks away.

"On a scale of no to yes-" Pidge begins as Lance stomps off.

"Negative five," Hunk laughs. "That was hilarious."

* * *

 

"Warning," Pidge says, not even looking up from their tech as Keith walks through the door.

The moment Keith crosses the threshold, a thousand tiny slips of paper cascade out of a bucket and down onto Keith's head.

"Can't say we didn't warn you," says Hunk.

"Wha-" Keith squints as pick up one of the slips, then another one. "I- Do these all say 'Jesus loves you?'"

"Lance wanted to make a point," Pidge explains.

"Why- Hunk, is this your handwriting!?"

"A thousand is a lot," Hunk shrugs. "Lance wanted help."

"On a scale of left to right, how done are you?" Pidge asks.

"Shiro during group training," Keith growls while shaking paper out of his hair.

Lance skips into the room with a wide grin. "Oh, Keith! I see you've found my gift," Lance says innocently.

"Why would you even do this? What if it had fallen on someone other than me?" Keith asks, sighing in exasperation.

"It actually fell on both Coran and Shiro before it finally fell on you," Hunk supplies. "Lance picked up all the pieces and tried again."

"Shiro got kind of mad," Lance admits, "but Coran let me teach him all about pranking."

"The grand Earth tradition of making people angry," Pidge mutters.

"Jesus loves you," Lance whispers.

"Lance-" Keith slowly blows air out through his nose. "Can you just stop with all this? Enough is enough."

"You're restricting my religious rights," Lance sniffs.

"Oh, just shut up!" Keith shouts. "I'm so done-" ("On a scale of Lance to Shiro, how-") "-with your stupid antics!"

"It isn't stupid!" Lance shouts back, face getting redder with each second. "God is real!"

"God is real, huh? Then where the hell was he when I jumped from family to family, never able to find one that wanted me? Where was he when I was kicked out of the Garrison, the only place I'd ever felt like I at least had a purpose?" Keith scoffs. "God isn't real. I don't have proof and, honestly, the most I've ever learned about the religion is from one of my foster families. The reason I'm here today is because I worked hard to be here."

Lance face softens.

"God, Christians are stupid," Keith huffs.

Pidge and Hunk evacuate the room.

"You shut your emo mouth," Lance hisses, and Keith's eyes go wide. "My whole familia was made of God-loving Christians. I was raised to believe in a God that was always there, and now that I'm not there, I need Him to be. This, this stupid Christianity thing is all I have left."

Keith opens his mouth, but Lance isn't done.

"I can't even remember what my hermanita looks like," Lance sniffs, tears pooling in his eyes. "But I remember the silly little prayers they teach to kids, and I am not about to let myself forget that. So you can go wallow in atheistic self-pity all you want, but do not call my family's religion 'stupid.'"

Keith and Lance stare into each other's eyes for a while, each refusing to back down.

At the same time, they both turn around and walk away.

* * *

"On a scale of one to ten, how much falling out should we expect?" Shiro asks with a wince, trying to speak Pidge's language.

"My Chemical Romance," Pidge sighs.

* * *

 

It's Sunday, and Allura doesn't understand why Lance won't lift his head at the dinner table.

"Is he sick?" the princess asks quietly.

A tear slips out of Lance's closed eye, and he shuts his eyes more tightly and clasps his hands together on top of the table.

"Odd," Coran begins, and Keith coughs slightly.

"Uh, God is great, G-God is good," he mumbles. "Let us thank him for our food."

The attention drifts to Keith and, for the most part, stays there, and Lance rubs his eyes and eats his goo.

* * *

"Damn it!" Keith shouts, punching the wall of the training deck. It hurts, but the pain grounds him. "Okay," he growls to himself. "Do this. Training sequence, level five!"

He's tired, been training since five a.m. this morning, and the bot beats him before he even has a chance to curse it out.

He's panting on the ground, having barely yelled out an "End sequence!" before the bot could slice his head off, when Lance finally speaks up.

"Hey, uh…" The Latino boy swallows and shifts his feet. "Keep going. You've made it this far. You can do it."

"… Thanks," Keith says, slowly standing up. Lance blushes and chokes out a "no problem" before running away.

Keith beats level five.

* * *

"… On a scale of Twitter to Tumblr, how weirded out are you?" Pidge whispers.

"The weird side of YouTube," Hunk whispers back.

"The teletubbies thing you showed us," Allura adds.

"Trypophobia," Shiro says.

"Eighties Voltron," Coran shudders.

Coran wins.

* * *

It's late. Most of the paladins are in bed, fast asleep.

Lance is not.

Lance is in the control room, as he often is on this type of night. He is staring at the hologram of the universe, wondering if he will ever return home.

It pains him, but he doesn't think he will.

Lance doesn't even notice when Keith comes in, hardly even notices when the Red Paladin sits down next to him. But when he does notice, he doesn't say anything for a long while.

"They're so far away," Lance finally says, and his voice cracks in time with Keith's heart.

Keith coughs awkwardly. "Uh… God is… God is bigger than the distance."

Lance can breathe again, so he leans in and kisses Keith until he can't.

* * *

"On a scale," Pidge begins, smirking deviously.

"Of one to ten," Hunk continues, mirroring Pidge's smirk.

"How smitten are you?" Shiro asks, as he was taught.

Keith groans and buries his face in his hands.

"Dang," Pidge breathes, as though Keith's horror and exasperation was an answer in itself.

Perhaps it was.

* * *

"Hey," Lance says, swallowing hard and avoiding eye contact as Keith opens his door.

"What is it?"

"I, uh… I was just worried about you, you know?" Lance tries, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. "Can I- Can I come in?"

Grudgingly, and after a long period of consideration, Keith opens the door the rest of the way.

The two sit down on Keith's bed, and Lance jumps right into it. "You've been, like, avoiding me, all day, and I just wondered if- if maybe it bothered you that I kissed you. Like, I dunno, maybe that's why you hated the pride pillow so much or something," Lance babbles. "And I just… wanted to apologize and stuff. For making you uncomfortable."

"No!" Keith practically yells, and Lance jumps back a bit. "I mean, no. Sorry. You didn't make me uncomfortable, I was just… surprised."

"Oh," Lance breathes, clearly relieved. "That's- good. I think."

Keith nods and winces slightly. "I'm not very experienced with this kind of thing, you know? And I hadn't really figured out my feelings yet."

"Have… Have you figured them out now?" Lance asks nervously, subconsciously playing with his hands.

"I don't know," Keith says, and Lance tries not to look too afraid. "I don't know, I can't- I don't know what to do."

Lance is quiet for a long while. Keith wonders if he has broken the fragile friendship they had begun to build together. But then Lance takes a deep breath and says, "I think you should… trust yourself." He looks up at Keith and smiles, something small but warm. "It's gotten you this far, right? Go with your gut."

Keith nods. After a while, he goes with his gut, grabs Lance by the nearly non-existent collar of his jacket, and pulls him in close.

Keith kisses Lance until the both of them are far too tired to continue, and then they fall asleep with their heads resting peacefully on Keith's specially designed pillow of pride.

* * *

"Dang," Pidge comments, watching the two boys through one of the castle's security cameras. "On a scale of kittens to Barney, how cute are they?"

"Puppies with bandanas," Hunk suggests, and Pidge nods in solemn agreement.

"I think this counts as an invasion of privacy," Shiro says worriedly.

"On a scale of one to ten, how much do you care?" Allura asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Damn," Shiro whispers.

* * *

It has been a long time since that night, Lance thinks to himself. An entire month! None of Lance's previous relationships have lasted this long. None of Lance's previous relationships have lasted more than a week, actually. (Mostly because he tends to prank them by saying something rude in Spanish in a really romantic tone. It usually takes approximately three days for them to get the intelligence to google the meaning, and then Lance gets dumped. Keith, however, reminds Lance of the ship's automatic translator immediately after what would usually be deemed 'the Spanish incident,' and then Keith just laughs and kisses him and Hunk mutters "This one's a keeper.")

Lance considers his relationship with Keith to be possibly the best thing to happen to him since, say, the day he single-handedly discovered a giant magical mecha lion. And so Lance has convinced Allura to land the ship on a Galra-free planet for a little anniversary tour with Keith.

"Darling dearest!" Lance exclaims, taking Keith's hand and kissing it elegantly. "Allow me." As gentlemanly as possible, Lance steps in front of the automatic doors of the alien building, effectively 'holding the door' for Keith. Keith finds this as good a time as any to get in his First Eye Roll of the Day™, but Lance pretends to ignore it.

"Where even are we?" Keith asks, mildly amused as he glances around the high-ceilinged room.

"Uh, I don't actually know?" Lance shrugs. "I just kinda headed toward the coolest-looking building."

Keith sighs. "Allura?"

"I believe this may be a chapel," she provides.

"Cool," Pidge comments. "What do they do here?"

"Hopefully nothing concerning dances of apology or sacrifices to the fire," Allura says, frowning disapprovingly.

"Hello!" says a short alien wearing a black robe. "I overheard you all talking. Do you wish to know what we practice?" Pidge nods, and the alien continues. "We worship The One Above, who created all the universe and who watches over each and every being that lives in it."

"Woah. So you're, like, Christians?" Lance balks. "Holy crap!"

"Christians?" the alien asks, tilting his head. "If that is what you call it."

"I mean, it's the general gist of it," Lance says, waving it off.

"That could be a lot of different religions," Keith says, raising an eyebrow.

"Hush, o heathen! Hey, so do you guys have like sermons or whatever?" Lance asks excitedly.

"We gather to celebrate and worship The One Above every fourth day. In fact, we are having one such celebration tonight!"

"Allura," Lance begs, immediately dropping to his knees. "Please, can we stay for it?"

"We really must be on our way quite soon-" she begins.

Keith glances down at Lance's sinking face and then back up at Allura. "Just one night?" he whispers.

"… One night!" Allura huffs.

"They'd better have food," Hunk grumbles.

"And weird alien tech, too," Pidge adds.

"We will stay for the celebration, if you don't mind," Shiro says, smiling at the alien.

"You are welcome, always!" the alien exclaims, and then he walks away to prepare for the party. 

* * *

 

It is night time. The celebration has just begun.

"Look at all the people," Lance says, in utter awe of the gathering.

"Aliens," Pidge corrects him.

"Does it matter?" Lance asks. "I haven't been to one of these church things since- well, since- you know." Lance's eyes go wide. "Oh my crow, they're playing the alien version of Christian rap over the speakers!"

Keith likes watching Lance smile. He figures he will get to watch Lance smile all night.

And he does, mostly. Keith and Lance both are in a very good mood when the end of the night rolls around. Especially when the robed alien leads a little parting prayer, and Lance just looks so at home, head bowed, eyes closed.

Lance is so happy when the prayer ends. He shouts "Amen!" and turns around and kisses Keith.

The entire congregation gasps in horror.

"Repent of your sins!" the robed alien roars, and Lance sinks in on himself like a kicked puppy. Keith furrows his eyebrows and lets Lance hide behind him slightly. "You- You- You terrible sinners! You will rot in the underworld! You are no 'Christian!'"

Lance whimpers and clings onto Keith's jacket, and Keith's eye twitches.

"Uh, maybe we oughta go," Hunk suggests, laughing nervously and tugging on Keith's arm. Keith yanks it free.

"What were you saying?" Keith asks slowly, almost emotionlessly.

"You are liars, saying that you worship The One Above and then turning around and doing such sinful things!" the alien booms. Keith grits his teeth and pushes Lance back, into Hunk's comforting arms. "You do not worship Him! You cannot! The devil resides inside of you! Disgusting! Heathens!"

Keith does not care much about what other people believe. He doesn't care what they think, and he doesn't care what their god thinks.

But Lance does.

Keith growls and draws his sword.

"Ooookay, that's enough!" Hunk laughs again, clamping a strong hand around Keith's pale arm and dragging him towards the exit. "Uh, thanks for the party thing, it was fun!"

The aliens glare after them. Before Hunk can pull them out the door, Keith yanks Lance close to him and kisses him hard, relishing in the way the aliens gasp and shield their children's eyes.

"God bless you," Keith hisses, and then he grabs Lance's hand, intertwines their fingers, and guides him out of the chapel with Hunk and Pidge following not far behind.

"Did we miss the end of the party?" Allura asks on the behalf of Shiro, Coran, and herself as the others stride past them.

"Yeah," Pidge says simply.

"On a scale of pleased to livid..," Shiro asks, looking at Keith with concern.

"… How mad are you?" Lance finishes, eyes wide.

"I love you," Keith huffs, and everyone's eyes go wide to match Lance's.

"Where does that even land on the scale!?" Pidge asks, throwing their hands up into the air.

"I-I- I, uh- I-" Keith stammers, unable to break eye contact with his boyfriend.

"Best. Anniversary. Ever," Lance mumbles, and then he throws his arms around Keith's neck and whispers, "I love you, too, pendejo."

"My helmet caught that, you know," Keith says, frowning a little.

"I love you I love you I love you," Lance says, burying his face in the crook of Keith's neck. Keith somehow manages to forget the insult, and he ends up smiling and hugging Lance back.

"On a scale of gay to really gay, how gay are these two," Pidge asks.

"Overwhelmingly gay," Lance responds solemnly. "But I'm actually bi."

"Well then it's not exactly overwhelmingly gay, is it?" Pidge grumbles good-naturedly as they walk back to the castle ship. Hunk sighs and walks after them, pausing to give Lance a not-so-subtle thumbs up, and the rest of the group slowly disappears as Lance and Keith hold each other for a little too long. Finally, the two break apart, but they still stare into each other's eyes, sharing a silent moment.

Keith doesn't believe in God, but he's starting to believe in Heaven.


End file.
